


The Masque of the Red Death

by deadwritersociety



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Assassination Plot(s), Enjolras Was A Charming Young Man Who Was Capable Of Being Terrible, Grantaire is an artist, M/M, Threats of Violence, enjolras is an assassin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 10:23:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20777009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadwritersociety/pseuds/deadwritersociety
Summary: The other gentleman sat next to him, and ordered his drink; a vodka cranberry.“Bold drink,” Enjolras said with a smile. “I’m a scotch man, myself.”“I don’t think I’m quite mature enough for scotch, yet.”“I hardly doubt maturity has anything to do with it,” Enjolras told him. “I believe the scotch matures the man. A man whose name happens to be…” he let his question trail off, hoping the other would pick up on it.“Grantaire, and you? Do I get to know your name, or is that top secret?”“I’d say it is top secret.”“Okay, my secret mystery man. Who are you meeting tonight?”“If I told you,” Enjolras began, smiling once more, “I would most definitely have to kill you.”





	1. beginning

A silencer was always a great choice for public assassinations. In the case that there would be an immediate chase afterwards, most security guards would not know where Enjolras was at the time he pulled the trigger. His favorite, though, was poison. He could speak to his victims, make them admit their crimes while they died, knowing all too well that Enjolras held the antidote in his hands. He was ruthless, vicious, full of wrath. 

Not a trace was ever left behind at any of his crime scenes. Enjolras was meticulous and precise; he would not be caught, as this was his life, day in, day out. Killing the rich was his life’s passion. 

As cliche as it was, he was a killer in red. 

Tonight, he wore a red blazer, maroon, with a maroon bow tie. He sat at the bar of the hotel in which his next victim was staying at, knowing the man would come down for a drink or ten. Enjolras knew these things, and would target his victims in the most personal way. It was how he got justice.

“Your drink, sir.” The bartender slid his drink to him. Enjolras took a sip, drumming his fingers upon the wood of the bar.

“Waiting for someone?” A man, not Enjolras’ victim, but a common man. No greed among him. “Or were you stood up?”

“Waiting for someone, yes. I don’t think I’ll be getting stood up, tonight, though,” Enjolras replied. “Come, sit. I’d rather have company while I wait.” 

The other gentleman sat next to him, and ordered his drink; a vodka cranberry. 

“Bold drink,” Enjolras said with a smile. “I’m a scotch man, myself.”

“I don’t think I’m quite mature enough for scotch, yet.”

“I hardly doubt maturity has anything to do with it,” Enjolras told him. “I believe the scotch matures the man. A man whose name happens to be…” he let his question trail off, hoping the other would pick up on it. 

“Grantaire, and you? Do I get to know your name, or is that top secret?”

“I’d say it is top secret.”

“Okay, my secret mystery man. Who are you meeting tonight?”

“If I told you,” Enjolras began, smiling once more, “I would most definitely have to kill you.” 

Enjolras turned to look at the door that led into the bar, watching his victim walk from the elevator to a stool. He ordered scotch on the rocks, a typical drink for a man of his line of work. 

“I’m sorry, Grantaire, but I do have to cut this short. The person I’m meeting has just arrived.”

Enjolras swiftly stood up, carrying his drink over to the man he was about to murder, beginning to speak to him, and when the timing was just right, he would slip a select drug into this man’s drink.

Then, he would leave. He would walk away into the night, making sure that he left no evidence, making sure that no one knew his true identity, making sure that he was truly a secret. 

His victims were in the hundreds by now. Heart attacks, poisons, true assassinations; all of it in the news and none of it for fame. Enjolras was on a streak. Three killings this week and two more planned for the weekend. He was on what could only be described as a murderous form of ecstasy, and he could never get enough of it. 

He lived a normal life, too, though. Enjolras studied politics and ran a political group with his friends, who had no idea what his opposite life was like. All they knew was that their darling Enjolras was constantly traveling somewhere. He was wild and ravenous on his nights and weekends. 

Strangulations were popular this month; they were the most requested. However, he did not do much paid work. Most of it was his choice. He chose the victims, he chose the terms, he chose every last detail. 

He did not see Grantaire for weeks after they had first met in that bar, and he was hoping he never had to. Keeping too many connections from his other life complicated things for Enjolras so much more than they already were. If his ordinary friends new his friends from his murderous life, they could begin to put two and two together. It would only take one slip up before they would figure out that Enjolras, the leader in red, was also the red death. 

However, when Enjolras was walking to the corner store, he heard a voice, one that he would not forget, no matter how much he needed to.

“My secret mystery man! Don’t pretend you don’t see me.”

Enjolras turned around to speak to Grantaire, his mind racing, his heart pounding, and his stomach churning. How could he explain a death that happened moments after he left that bar?

“Hello, Grantaire? How are you doing? Good, I hope.”

“You are so proper,” Grantaire laughed. “I am fine, though. However, I find it such an amazing coincidence that we must live so close to each other to be going to the same corner store.”

“Yes, what a coincidence,” Enjolras replied. He attempted to keep it short and to the point. Any revealing details would ruin his cover.

“So, what have you been up to lately?” 

“You know, same old, same old.” Oh yes, he was up to the same. The same thing he had been doing for the past three years.

“Yes, I know that. Say, do you want to get drinks tonight? Scotch neat, right?”

“I’m afraid I have to decline. I have some business to attend to tonight.”

“Then tomorrow, or any day you so wish. As you can tell, I’m truly interested in you.” Grantaire spoke quickly, and Enjolras knew why; the anxiety. It was so obvious that Grantaire was romantically interested in him, he didn’t even have to say it.

“Sunday morning brunch? I’m afraid that’s the only time I’m free for a while, now.” Enjolras could make time, but it would mean cutting out another victim. He could not sacrifice that feeling, that drug he had created for himself.

“Sunday morning brunch, then.”

As Enjolras walked away, and Grantaire stayed where he was, something slipped from under his jacket. His gun had fallen from his inside pocket. Grantaire rushed to pick it up. 

“I think you dropped something, secret mystery man.” His voice was so low that no one but Enjolras would hear. 

Enjolras snatched it away and stashed it away in the same pocket. “Speak nothing of this, and maybe one day I will tell you my name.”

“Okay, secret mystery man.”

“And stop calling me that, it sounds so suspicious.”


	2. repentance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What are you doing this afternoon?”
> 
> Nothing, is what Enjolras wanted to tell him. He wanted to give up his corrupt politician that spent thousands of tax dollars on escorts, but he knew it was his only chance to get at him. “I’m going out of town for the evening.” 
> 
> It wasn’t an exact lie, he was going out of town. Not far, just outside, to a little motel. He would catch the man, hold a gun to the back of his head, make him beg for mercy, apologize for what he did. He would make him pay back the money in a simple encounter. 
> 
> Then he would pull the trigger.

Sunday had arrived and since then, at least one of Enjolras’ assassinations of the week had been on the local news. ‘Local congressman poisoned in bar, more news on the matter at nine.’ He saw it on the news while he was eating breakfast in his kitchen. Enjolras turned the tv off before leaving the kitchen. Publicity was never the goal. The goal was to relieve the power, but of course, the goal had always been something more. 

His true wish, of course, was an anarchal overthrow, however, murder would do just fine. 

Saturday had come and gone in a daze and it was already Sunday morning before it had set in that he had a date with the beautiful man he had met at a hotel bar. They had never agreed on where they would meet, but it certainly would not be at Enjolras’ building. He would have to move immediately if anyone from the other life knew where he lived.

“Hello,” he said to Grantaire, when he found him waiting at the street corner by the store. “Are you ready for brunch?”

“I’m ready to know your name, as well as ready to know why you-know-what fell out of your pocket the last time we spoke.”

“All in good time, Grantaire. We’ll go to brunch, first, and then talk.” 

Enjolras could practically smell the fear on Grantaire, almost like a dog. “Nothing to be afraid of,” he told him. “I promise,” he tacked on after a moment. 

“If you say so, mystery man.”

Enjolras began walking down the street, and it wouldn’t be a long walk until they reached his regular brunch spot. 

“Do you kill often?” Grantaire asked as a joke. 

Enjolras did not pick up on this joke, though, and tensed up at the thought that someone knew his dirty little secret. “Do you really think I kill?”

“I don’t know, do you? I don’t know your name, darling.” 

Flirtation. He was most definitely joking. 

“No, I don’t kill.”

They were silent as their food arrived to their table, hoping no one would hear their conversation, in case anything came of it.

“Were you going to kill that day that I saved your ass?”

Enjolras laughed as he took a drink of his coffee. “You think you saved me?”

“I do,” Grantaire told him. “If it weren’t for me, your gun would be lying on the sidewalk. You could have been arrested for something.”

“If I tell you why I had it with me, would you tell anyone?”

“No, I don’t have anyone to tell, anyways.”

“I’m an assassin. I kill mostly public figures, but there are moments when I do paid hits.”

Grantaire was the one laughing this time. “If you don’t want to tell me, it’s okay. You don’t need to make up a story about it. Your name, though?”

Enjolras was content that Grantaire had not believed him. “My name is Enjolras.”

“Lovely name, Enjolras.” 

“I could say the same for you, Grantaire.” He was not supposed to fall in love, no, that was one of his top rules. Falling in love came with far too many liabilities in his line of work.

“What are you doing this afternoon?”

Nothing, is what Enjolras wanted to tell him. He wanted to give up his corrupt politician that spent thousands of tax dollars on escorts, but he knew it was his only chance to get at him. “I’m going out of town for the evening.” 

It wasn’t an exact lie, he was going out of town. Not far, just outside, to a little motel. He would catch the man, hold a gun to the back of his head, make him beg for mercy, apologize for what he did. He would make him pay back the money in a simple encounter. 

Then he would pull the trigger. 

“That’s too bad,” Grantaire told him. “I was hoping I could take you out for drinks.”

“That sounds lovely, I wish I could take you up on that.”

“You could. You could cancel your out of town business and join me.”

“You could join me for drinks out of town while I am out on business.” 

Grantaire, who logically should have said no, thought about it, and even though he did not truly know this man, he said yes. Fear was possibly a factor into that. Who would say no to a man who keeps a gun in his coat pocket? Not a sane man. Not a man who wants to keep his life for just a little while longer. He was being rational.

“Meet me at the street corner at six o’clock sharp tonight.”

“I’ll see you there, then.” 

The two left brunch, neither knowing what to expect this evening, both hoping nothing would go wrong at all. 

When they met, they were very awkwardly waiting to hail a cab. 

“So… what kind of business are you attending tonight?” Grantaire asked him.

“Some business of the violent type.”

“You can’t be serious. You don’t look like you could hurt a fly. Are you like, the Godfather, or something?” 

Enjolras let a smirk wash over his face. “Do you watch the news?”

“Not often, no. Why do you ask?”

“No particular reason, there’s just been many more assassinations lately. Of the political type.”

“My mother told me about that when we were on the phone,” Grantaire said as they got into a cab. “She said they’re particularly corrupt ones.”

“Yes, I noticed that, too.” Enjolras almost laughed. It was hilarious to him that he was the killer, getting that beautiful revenge, and Grantaire wouldn’t have so much as a clue. 

“When are you going to take care of your business?”

Enjolras peeked out the window, and like clockwork, there was the politician he was after. “Just now, actually. I’ll be back right away.” So he slipped out of their motel room, and into the one where his sly victim would be staying. 

Hiding in the closet, gun in his hand, finger on the trigger, he walked out when the man sat down on the bed. 

“You’re going to admit what you’ve done, sir.”

The man was afraid. Sweat pouring down his forehead, his mouth was extremely dry, and he could barely speak. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He put the gun to the back of his head. “Yes you do.”

“And so what if I did it. What does it matter to you?”

“You’re robbing the citizens of this country blind. You use thousands of tax dollars a month on your excursions. Cheating on your wife, deceiving your peers, ruining families. You’re wrong.”

“I was going to pay it back, I really was.” This was the begging stage; one of Enjolras’ favorites. He could hear it in their voices, the way they finally repent for what they’ve done. 

“Do it now. All of it. Wire it over now, I know you can; and don’t bother trying to save yourself, you’re going to die anyways.”

The man grabbed his laptop from his bag, moving very slowly, knowing that Enjolras meant business. He opened his accounts and began sending every last cent back to his departments account. “There, I’ve done it. Isn’t that enough? Please, I’m begging. Don’t do this.”

It wasn’t enough. Not enough to stop Enjolras, who did not find justice until every man who had done such vile and inconsiderate things was dead. 

He pulled the trigger, a silent gun shot. The politician was dead, and Enjolras was free for the night. His elation could only truly be celebrated with a nice glass of scotch with a beautiful man whose name happened to be Grantaire. 

Celebration was his favorite part. It was his own little celebration, and he never had to tell anyone about it. 


End file.
